Passionary

A codex of accurate manufacturing, whose local provenance is proved by the herein contained passions of Aquileian martyrs.

Among the ninth-century codices of a probable Friulian origin, this passionary, nowadays kept in the University Library of Graz, with its bright parchment and the ornamental set of a certain degree, is surely the product of a very accurate manufacturing. The presence of saints surely worshipped in the Aquileian area (Cantius, Cantianus and Canzianilla, Hermagoras and Fortunatus, Iustus, Hilary and Tatian, Maur, Florian, Pelagius) proves the local provenance of the codex, confirmed by the family tie of these texts with the ones of other martyrologies having their origin in Cividale. However, with reference to contemporary products it exhibits quite an elaborated and original set of ornaments, made up with red/orange, yellow/ochre and, in one case (f. 21r), green illuminated, ink-contoured initials with interlaced motives in the loops and/or strokes that sometimes end into the heads of either imaginary animals or, more often, birds. Since an unspecified moment the codex had belonged to the Benedictine Abbey of Sankt Lambrecht, in Styria. Therefore it formed part of the group of manuscripts that converged into the funds of the University Library of Graz after the Abbey’s cessation in 1796.